The following paragraphs are not an admission that anything discussed in them is prior art or part of the knowledge of persons skilled in the art.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,026,522 describes a manually powered swimming pool cover drive for extending and retracting swimming pool covers and which includes a pair of overrunning one way clutch devices for intermittent coupled rotation with and also freewheeling about a drive shaft. A drum rotates with the drive shaft and allows winding of a cover about the drum when retracted from a covered position over a swimming pool. A pair of one way clutches may be trained around a drive shaft and coupled for rotating a cable reel allowing for the winding of cables used to extend a swimming pool cover. The respective pairs of overrunning, one-way clutches are reciprocated back and forth respectively in a type of indexing operation, manually and with long lever handles for rotating the drive shafts.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,618,869 describes an apparatus for rolling up and laying out a solar pool cover over a pool. The apparatus comprises two support frames, two reel supports, and a reel shaft that is mounted atop the two support frames. The two support frames are located opposite one another across the width of the pool. The solar pool cover is wound around the reel shaft. The reel shaft is hooked up to a motor which is atop one of the support frames.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,871,362 describes a pair of end heads that are interconnected onto the inwardly disposed tube assembly to form the pool cover storage reel. Hand wheels are rotationally attached to tube assembly by end tubes on the outside of the end heads. Each of the end heads includes a pair of casters mounted to the bottom surface of the end head. The tube assembly consists of five components, a center tube, two outer tubes and two end caps. The center tube is of larger diameter and allows for the two outer tubes to be telescopically inserted into the opposing distal ends. The cylindrically shaped tubes include mating male and female extrusions along the surfaces to ensure joint rotational movement of the tube assembly. The telescoping tubes include a series of holes along the surface creating cavities and providing convenient and efficient means to store the straps, springs or other anchoring means that are positioned around the perimeter of the covering.